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OUR HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY
Children’s Clinic La Jolla
(CCLJ) brings family-friendly pediatrics to the beaches and beyond. Open to patients from newborns to 21 years, CCLJ was
established in 2005 by S. Daman Paul, MD, a pediatrician from the Chicago area with over 35 years experience. His goal was
to create a neighborhood office where a patient and their family can form a close relationship with their physician, along
the lines of how medicine used to be, before large managed healthcare groups became the norm. Although based in La Jolla,
CCLJ’s goal is to provide the same personalized service to families throughout greater San Diego.
CCLJ is a general
pediatric practice, providing a broad range of healthcare services to patients newborn to 21 years-old. Services include:
care of newborns, school and sports physicals, immunizations, treatment of asthma, allergies, childhood obesity, ADHD, and
developmental problems. Regular office hours are Monday through Friday, 10 am to 5 pm, as well as Saturday mornings, 10 am
to noon. Patients are seen by appointment, with time left open for emergencies.
Dr. Paul’s motivation was to have a
home in La Jolla, without having to give up his passion of providing healthcare to children. Along with his wife, Janet,
Dr. Paul decided that Bird Rock, with its neighborhood orientation, would be the perfect spot for a general pediatric office.
Taking over a year to develop, CCLJ now has a staff of four physicians. Besides Dr. Paul, the staff includes Bird Rock resident
Gretchen C. Gainor, MD, Alisa J. Lawrie, MD, and Karen A. McGowan, MD. All three have young children and are excited by the
opportunity to work in a family-friendly atmosphere. Along with other impressive credentials, all of the physicians are boarded
in pediatrics and are Fellows of the American Academy of Pediatrics (FAAP). While all are primary-care physicians, each brings
something special to the practice. For example, Dr. McGowan is a liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on
Children with Disabilities.
Children’s Clinic La Jolla has presented Dr. Paul with the opportunity to innovate, particularly
in the area of electronic medical records. An important trend in medicine, EMRs permit greater accuracy in recordkeeping,
diagnosis, prescriptions, and medical testing. It is so important that the U.S. government will eventually make EMRs mandatory.
However, due to the complexity of the change, many established practices are hesitating to incorporate this innovation.
Being a new office, CCLJ is able to implement an EMR system from the beginning, allowing the physicians to make use of the
benefits afforded by this new technology.
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